The absurdity of Obama even thinking of offering his opinion of such a radioactive and nationally inconsequential topic as the execrable Mr Vick is, of course, unsurprising as Obama has already proven himself to be a completely unserious, forehead-slappingly embarrassing bungler when it comes to matters of Presidential decorum and political appropriateness.

Execution seems a bit harsh, but he should certainly have suffered more serious consequences than he did for his crimes, a fault of the law and of the lenient attitude America has toward the wealthy and famous. The purposeless torturing and killing of domesticated animals without remorse is one of the primary indicators of a severely sociopathic/psychopathic character. Che Guevarra used to require his "soldiers" to befriend and keep a puppy for several months and then kill it without hesitation to prove their ability to unquestionably and emotionlessly follow his murderous orders. The bogus "it's the Christian thing to forgive and give Vick a second-third-fourth-fifth-sixth... chance!" is a ruse proffered by people who just want to see their little ball-tosser running around in tight pants again and, of course, want to profit from it.

Wasn't that Tucker Carlson playing linebacker for the Vikings? That one sack - the one where Tucker blew past the noseguard and slammed Vick The Dog Murderer to the ground - was hard core. I couldn't believe the refs didn't flag Tucker for unnecessary roughness when he then took his bow tie off and stuffed it down Vick The Dog Murderer's throat.

" The absurdity of Obama even thinking of offering his opinion of such a radioactive and nationally inconsequential topic as the execrable Mr Vick is, of course, unsurprising as Obama has already proven himself to be a completely unserious, forehead-slappingly embarrassing bungler when it comes to matters of Presidential decorum and political appropriateness."

I also bet the Clintons must be laughing their asses off at Obama's dumb moves while also drinking like fish and lamenting "how the hell did Hillary! lose to this dumb schmuck?"

There is a wing of animal rights people who are as radical as the Taliban. I could imagine something similar coming from Bill Maher.

But as a friend of mine who is an Eagles fan said: "Michael Vick is a disgusting dog killer who has no place in society, but if he helps the Eagles get in the play offs and win a Superbowl all is forgiven."

The reaction to Vick's crimes has been over the top since the beginning.

We have Ray Lewis, who, it appears, was involved in a double homicide, but he is not treated as badly as Vick. I am not condoning animal cruelty, but they are animals not humans. The fact that he went to prison for this still amazes me.

"We have Ray Lewis, who, it appears, was involved in a double homicide"

This is misleading. He wasn't involved in the killing. The killers were members of his group. When he found out he asked other members of his group to say nothing to protect his reputation.

But still, I haven't rooted for him personally since. It says something about your character that you choose to hang out with people capable of killing, and that your first instinct is to protect yourself when it happens.

The NFL is thug ridden and a reflection of what we get when we decide that being judgmental is a bad thing. Michael Vick was likely raised to eschew everything about the larger culture other than its money and he was encouraged to do his own thing regardless of what that thing is or was. He is very very dumb and will die broke but in the meantime he is celebrated by the president of the United States as a great hero of redemption, a guy who memorized the right words of remorse to get himself back in the thug league. The president beclowns himself further.

Carlson was using what was once called hyperbole but today is recognized by liberals as a "lie."

Why are there people here saying that dog killing is ok? Millions of dog owners consider their pet to be part of the family. They would consider killing their pet on par with killing their son/daughter. Of course someone who murders dogs should be executed. Why is this even controversial? Vick is a piece of excrement.

They would consider killing their pet on par with killing their son/daughter.

I've got a dog that I've had since before my kids were born. I love that dog, but there is absolutely no way in hell I equate the K9 with one of my sons or daughters, regardless of who's better at catching frisbees.

Show me someone who does equate their dog to one of their kids and I'll show you a whole lot of other things that are probably wrong with their lives.

Can anyone point out a high functioning athlete who has not been forgiven for his transgressions? The Mets reliever K-Rod slapped around his wife and father in law. He lost his contract with the Mets, but he will land somewhere else. If he performs well in three successive games, his will be another story of redemption and moral growth. If not, he will fade into obscurity and further moral squalor. We seem to equate physical grace with spiritual grace in our athletes in the way that we confound character with beauty in women. In both cases, there is a less than chance correlation. Present company excepted, of course.

Isn't this all a bit of a tempest in a teapot? It's real-life market-driven decision making by all involved along with the truism that moral absolutes in the real world are hard to come by or maintain.

All of the above, of course, assumes we have completely (or very nearly completely) lost the capacity to hold up sports heroes as roll models for our kids. We lost that along with a whole slew of positive facets of society when we decided that shame was an anachronism.

OK, the execution thing is over the line, but, as we've discussed, the Zero call wouldn't be happening if Vick, were white, a normal person, and Jeffrey Lurie wasn't a big Demo contributor.

While he's paid his debt as the law prescribed, Vick is still getting off lightly because he's a celebrity and most people have lost the sense of moral outrage and righteous (as in justifiable) outrage that was once part of the makeup of most Americans (thank the Lefties and their moral relativism). There was a time he would have been through in professional sports, even after serving his sentence.

JR is 100% right. And what about the woman rapist who got his way for being whiteSome time ago in Minnesota a woman was exposed a winter night for mistreatment and nobody complaint for the unusual and cruel punishment.And nobody talk about the animal rights terrorist killing people , those researching and those deprived of highly needed drugs

If Roesch really meant "Sermon on the Mound", then the bracelet would be, WWMTD (What Would Margaret Thatcher Do?) Scott. Either that, or it's a very clever Michael Vick-baseball reference I don't get...

If, on the other hand, he meant the Sermon on the Mount, then I agree Tucker's intolerance is not a very Christian-like display of forgiveness.

What's with all the concern in the United States for dog's rights? There are plenty of cultures in which dogs are killed and eaten. This is all just another display of American lack of cultural sensitivity!

He already served jail time and lost his job. What the f? He should be killed for killing dogs now? He should have to wander the earth for a thousand years to atone for his sin? It was dogs, not people. Yes, I love dogs, and I would never mistreat dogs (or any other animals other than food sources) but at the end of the day it's JUST a dog. How many people abandon their dogs every day because they no longer feel like taking care of a dog. how many perfectly healthy dogs are euthanized simply because they haven't been adopted in the alloted time. How man dogs get eaten in less enlightened countries than ours?If my dog died, it'd be really sad and I'd have a Marley & Me moment where I cry over the dog. Then the next week I'd get a new dog. Vick got the message that hurting dogs is bad. He went to jail for his crime. Society already got its pound of flesh and if he goes back to abusing dogs, throw him back in jail. Why the president is getting involved, I have no idea (other than because he seems to crave inserting himself into bullshit stories to lower the presidency and give him some publicity). The guy isn't a child molester, he just doesn't like dogs much. Now he's gotten the politically correct message that harming dogs is wrong jammed into his head, and he (probably) won't do it again.

Lucien wrote:Well, if Carlson supports the death penalty for the murder of dogs, imagine what he'd do to that Moose cannibal Sarah Palin.

That's a great point. All of a sudden some conservatives are acting like Ashley Judd and her war on the eskiomoes that kill wolves or bear. If you're ok with shooting a wolf with a rifle from a helicopter, then you are fundamentally ok with killing dogs. Wolves are dogs. I guess Sarah Palin should be in jail for her crimes.

I love my dog, and I think what Vick did should place him beyond the pale of polite society (sadly, there is no such thing anymore), but to paraphrase what someone said in the other Vick thread, when we have a political party in this country which garners cheers and devoted acolytes when its sole animating purpose is the extermination of millions of babies a year, I can't really get all that worked up about the death of a few anonymous dogs.

R-V: How in the world do you elide to a generalization about the practice of Christianity in the modern world from the paragraph quoted? How do you fathom the faith of someone you do not know from this statement? You are certainly one of the more pretentious commenters but not normally among the more stupid.

jr565: What we cannot politely talk about is that Michael Vick is a part of the underclass. He is what used to be called a low life, a thug, a person with a tenuous grasp on the moral. Now lots of underclass people like to fight dogs for their own low class amusement. Blacks, white trash and latins fight dogs and they fight cocks. They used to fight each other with their fists but have become such lazy low lifes they prefer guns to settle the smallest disagreements. More upper class people like to shoot deer and bear and, yes, wolves for their amusement. I personally like to shoot unsuspecting birds out of the air. Is there a difference between these activities apart from class distinctions? Probably not. Probably I am as morally inept as Michael Vick, perhaps worse because I pretend to make a distinction between killing bow wows and shooting doves, the very symbol of peace. Much ado about nothing in many respects except for the fact that Michael Vick is a dumb, extra dumb, kid who grew up in a world from which the moral code had been extracted by liberals who thought it a good idea that women should be encouraged to raise kids alone on welfare while the "men" who sired them bred dogs for fighting. And no harsh words about being low lifes, about being scum. And then we get our very open minded president weighing in with his high school philosophy. Complicated, eh?

Which is consistent with how we look at crimes against people. We generally view murderers as the worst of criminals, but those who also torture their victims are seen as sub-human, psychotic monsters.

AllenS said..."Will the Badgers be forgiven for abusing Horned Frogs?"

And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs [come] out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. - Revelation 16:13 KJV

So no, AllenS. Jesus, Himself, would have abused and smitten those evil horned frogs. Furthermore, consider (although some people find it the worst pop song designed to reflect a profound moral conscience. i.e. the smuggest, most pretentious of pop songs) consider what Jesus preached in his AD24 hit song Sermon On the Mt. Pasadena:

"Blessed are the Badgers, for theirs is the kingdom of gridiron heaven.

Blessed are those named Ball, White, and Clay, for they shall carry the ball unimpeded.

Blessed are the Meades (and everyone with a TiVo), for they shall fast-forward through tv commercials.

Blessed are the Wisconsinites who hunger and thirst for righteous victory, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed is the UW defense, for they obtained J.J. Watt.

Blessed are the pure of hits, for they shall see God every time they sack the TCU quarterback.

Blessed is the peacemaker through strength, for he shall be called Scott Tolzien.

Blessed are they who are persecuted simply because they sing On Wisconsin, for theirs is the kingdom of Rose Bowl heaven."

Alex wrote:Millions of dog owners consider their pet to be part of the family. They would consider killing their pet on par with killing their son/daughter.

and there are millions of others who think, like Vic, that dogs are simply property to be used and abused, of no more signifcaance than a gerbil. People also have fish as pets, and some imght view fish as their son/daughter. Yet, do you really care what happens to you fish? Certianly you're not going out to torture them, but if one dies I doubt you are wracked with agony and depression. Rather you probably just flush it down the toilet and by a new fish. What if someone said if you abuse fish you should be killed, or thrown in jail. I think you'd probably argue, hey it's just a fish. So how different are you really than Michael Vick. He thinks of dogs the way you think of fish. He may be a villain for not paying enough deference to dogs but maybe you're not paying enough deference to the fish of the world. If Vick and friends had a siamese fighting fish ring and were throwing them into a tank to kill each other, would you say he should be banned from football for life? No? Then aren't you condoning the torture and slaughter of animals under your care? So what if they're fish, the only reason you don't view them as like your children is because you're calous like Michael Vick.

I don't know about the crimes of other athletes some have mentioned. I do know that I, and perhaps others, get more upset about cruelty to children, animals, and the elderly - those who are helpless. They can't run, they can't fight back, they can't call 911. All of those at a dramatic disadvantage to their abusers. Some will say that dogs are not people so they don't "count" as much as a human (and the law reflects that), but Vick didn't put a dog out of it's misery by putting a bullet in a dogs head. He drowned them, and he smashed their heads into walls over and over until they died. I do think that someone who can torture an animal like that has a screw loose and is capable of doing the same thing to a human. I think he should be out of the NFL. Find another way to make a living.

I have a sterling silver cup my Presbyterian Elder, bank president great grandfather won cock-fighting over a hundred years ago. Considering he was over 50 at the time, I hope I inherited some of those genes.

Catherine wrote:I do think that someone who can torture an animal like that has a screw loose and is capable of doing the same thing to a human. I think he should be out of the NFL. Find another way to make a living.

Except suppose he got a job at a supermarket, wouldn't you say that he shouldn't have a job at a supermarket because he killed dogs? Whatever job he found you could suggest he needs to find another way to make a living.As someone else mentioned, culturally a lot of people in the inner city don't have the same magical relationship to dogs that white people do. DL Hughley had a hilarious bit on the diffrences between whites and blacks and part of it centered on how they treat their dogs. (I still got some whoof in me!). Whites take their dogs to the vets, black dogs havent' gone to the vet ever.Whites dogs get pampered, blacks dogs are lucky to get fed. A lot of it is comedy, but it's based on a truth. Cuturally blacks treat their dogs differently. If vick grew up in an inner city where dog fighting or cock fighting was the norm, then he might not see anything wrong with it, just as an asian person used to eating dogs in his country might come to this country and wonder why we are so hypocritical about our meats in this country (We can slaughter billions of cows and pigs and lambs yet somehow dogs (which are very tasty) get this super special treatment.In INdia cows are sacred> Think about how they must view us and our slaughtering of billions of cows a year. We must be the biggest barbarians to them. Should you not hold a job because you eat cows? What's that thing about not throwing stones in glass houses?Now thats not to say that he shouldn't have been punished. He was, he lost a lot and probably will never have dog fighting rings again. BUt give the guy a break already.Maybe women who abort their babies shoulnd't be allowed to work anywhere, nor appear anywhere in polite society. Maybe they should be shunned just like the dog killers.

JR565 - There is a big difference in killing a dog/an animal and eating it for food and torturing it. I think most farmers, cowboys, etc. don't torture their animals before they eat them. They die quickly.

All the people who were freaking about Sarah Palin killing a moose - it died instantly. She didn't beat it's head in with a pipe and call it sport.

I think there is a difference in working in a supermarket and making millions in the NFL.